


Les Vieux

by toastandvegemite



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 18:13:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12463161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toastandvegemite/pseuds/toastandvegemite
Summary: Damien runs into a memory in a corridor. He should be old enough to know better.





	Les Vieux

It was unlikely they'd meet at the back of a bar in Melbourne, where neither of them lived, and even more unusual that there were no wives waiting with a glass of wine for their stray husbands to return from the bathroom. Damien didn't even realise who he was walking past for half a second - he was a few drinks into an evening that was following on from a long lunch - but then something about then downturned curve of Michael's nose in the bad lighting struck him as familiar.

"Pup," he said, surprised and pleased and mostly surprised. Michael stopped and focussed in on him, recognition lighting up his face. He smiled, board and genuine, and Damien was pretty sure Michael was on the edge of drunk himself.

"Marto," he grinned and reached out the hug him. Someone else was behind Damien trying to get through the narrow corridor to the bathrooms, so they pressed against the mahogany wall to let the guy past, still hugging.

Pulling back, Michael still had his hands on Damien's biceps, staring at him with an almost unnerving focus. Marto found himself looking back, feeling his heart spike in a way that surprised him.

It wasn't like they hadn't talked in the last ten years. You always saw old team-mates at matches and events, and then there were weddings and media appearances. There was the odd text message around Christmas or at the birth of another child.

They'd talked, but it had been a long time since they were drunk and alone and in a city far away from home. It had been a long time since Michael had looked at him so intently and without a tinge of wariness.

"What are you up to, mate? Who are you here with?" asked Michael, seeming to remember that they couldn't stay in the dark corner next to the kitchens staring at each other.

"Just dropped my brother-in-law off into a cab, we're down for the tennis," replied Damien. "You?"

"Some business thing, they're looking for investors," said Michael with a shrug. He said it like the was an every day occurrence for him, and Damien guessed it probably was. They'd come a long, long way from young men sitting sitting next to each other on buses in the stifling Indian heat. Although perhaps Damien was old, even then.

"I've been trying to blow them off for an hour, you have time to grab a drink?" Michael continued. He looked hopeful. They weren't those men anymore, they were fathers and businessmen and sliding into undeniable middle age, but something about Michael had never quite grown up. Damien found it strangely reassuring that not everything from the nostalgia tinted glory of a decade ago was completely gone.

"Sure. Yeah, that'd be good. Here, or..." Damien trailed off. He was quite drunk and he hadn't expected to be confronted with Michael, with time to talk to him and wearing a familiar smile.

They hadn't always gotten on. Something about Pup had always stirred Damien up, first into a level of insane attraction that he couldn't quite rationalise even fifteen years after the fact, and later it left him frustrated, angry and needing more space than a cricket team can give you. It had just been one part of everything that had gone wrong at the end of his career, but it had been significant. Michael had always been annoyingly significant.

Damien knew Michael's head hadn't been right either by the end of his career, either. It was probably something they could talk about now, a bridge across the gulf that always seemed to be between them.

They were just two ex-cricketers now, after all, who should be old enough to know when to stop drinking and not flirt with married people.

"There's a bar at my hotel," offered Michael. It was a plain invitation, given their history with hotel rooms and alcohol and each other. Damien didn't even pause to think it through, because life had been the same for a long time now and Michael still made something in him want to be stupid and impulsive, and to act a lot younger than he was. 

"And a mini-bar in your room?" Damien questioned. Michael's friendly smile sharpened into something knowing.

"Yeah, I reckon."

"Sounds good."

They left the bar, Michael waving some fleeting farewell to the men he was there with, and they stood on the curb waiting for a taxi. Damien watched Michael, who was looking at something on his phone. 

"Aren't we a bit old for this?" Damien asked, feeling marginally more clear headed in the cool evening air. His spark of unease wasn't that he didn't want to go back to Michael's assuredly fancy hotel room - he was surprised to realise how keen he was for that - but more than he had always been ten years older than Pup, who always looked younger than he was. 

He didn't want Michael to sober up and realise this wasn't a part of his youth he wanted to revisit, at least not with Damien.

"Probably," said Michael, putting his phone back into his pocket. He looked at Damien, searching his face with a perceptiveness he certainly didn't used to have. Perhaps he had grown up a bit, after all. "But life isn't really as fun these days, is it?"

They'd had a lot of fun. Misguided, reckless, painful fun and Damien missed it.

"Not really," he agreed. Michael gave him a smaller smile, one of understanding, before a taxi approached and he flung out an arm.

"Come on, Marto," said Michael, loud and brash again, pulling open the door of the taxi for Damien, "Come make some shit decisions with me."

 _Just like old times_ , he didn't need to say. Damien got into the taxi.


End file.
